Salted
by PokeyDotes
Summary: Almost everything Sam knows concerning Mary Winchester, he's gotten from Dean.


**A/N: I don't know where this came from. I understand this idea has been done almost too many times, but it wouldn't leave me alone. I'm an angst junkie through and through.**

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"You know, you almost seem to enjoy that a little _too_ much." Sam's words of worry, spoken with a barely suppressed laugh, are only met with a smile as Dean continues to stab and cut through the large watermelon, effectually separating it into two, identical hemispheres. Cutting each hemisphere in half and handing half of the melon to his brother, Dean takes the knife and stabs it into the fence post, smiling when it sticks on the first try.

Reaching into the opened trunk, he rummages through the many contents, tossing aside a few shotgun shells, an empty flask, and a half-empty box of band-aids before pulling out a well-used canister of Morton's salt. One hand balancing his half of the watermelon, he uses the other to carry the salt, popping the lid open with the nail of his thumb before sprinkling it over the top of his melon.

Without looking, he hands Sam the salt and greedily bites into the melon, smiling like a little boy when juice runs down his chin. He takes the time to separate the seeds with his tongue, tucking them in his cheek while he swallows the melon.

"I've never understood why someone would put salt on a watermelon." Dean turns his head in reaction to Sam's voice. Sam's still holding the salt container, the lid now closed, and is trying to balance it on the fence post next to the knife. "Watermelon's supposed to be sweet, but you and Dad always covered it with salt."

Dean leans over the fence, spitting out two seeds and wiping a third from his chin before he answers. "That's how Mom used to eat it." Though he tries to say it with an air of indifference, Sam hears the low and soft spoken tone usually reserved for when his brother mentions their mother, he sees the way Dean's green eyes let their focus slip away as his brother stares at something only he can see. It only lasts a moment, and then it's gone—any emotion is tucked away and hidden as Dean takes another giant bite of the salt-covered melon.

Sam turns from his brother and stares at the two pieces of melon balancing in his hand. His mother had liked salt on her watermelon. Slowly, he takes a bite, enjoying the sweetness, and the way the melon seems to instantly turn to juice. He had never thought about whether or not his mother _even liked_ watermelon, let alone did she put salt on it.

As he watches his brother finish up the first piece of melon, lean back and toss the rind over the fence towards the cows in the distance, Sam realizes, not for the first time, how little he knows about his mother. Everything, _everything_, he knows about Mary Winchester he had learned from his brother and father, and while Dean had been helpful telling him about her when they were younger, there's still so much he doesn't know.

Sam takes another bite as Dean begins eating his second piece. "I never knew that," Sam says, causing Dean to turn his head towards his brother. Keeping his eyes trained on the ground where the fence post meets the dirt, Dean shrugs one shoulder, spits out another seed, and looks up to watch a couple of cows slowly make their way to the offered rind. "I just remembered it," he mutters before taking another bite.

Most of the things Dean remembers about his mother are through the eyes of a four year old, their importance organized through the mind of a child. Sights, sounds, bedtime stories, tickle fights, bath times, homemade cookies. All of it remembered by a little boy, but held tightly by a grown man.

He remembers the way her hair smelt when she would lean over him, her long curls falling around him as she kissed him on the forehead. She would always sing while she washed the dishes or vacuumed, bobbing her head in time to the music she imagined in her head. She would use a cup to wash his hair, having him hold a washcloth over his eyes while she emptied a cupful of water over his head.

Every so often, he surprises himself by what he remembers and what brings it up. Every so often, he's surprised at the fact that he could forget. He was only four years old, he should be glad he remembers anything at all, but he's always saddened when he realizes there's a part of her he hadn't held onto. After all, she was his mom.

It's worse when he realizes his brother doesn't even have that. Sam doesn't know what it's like to loose a mother, because he doesn't even know what it's like to have one. No matter how much Dean sat down and tried to explain to a five year old Sammy what their mom had been like, Sam's never going to truly _know_. Not like Dean does, not like he did.

Wiping away the juice that's collected on his chin, Dean risks a look at his brother, noticing the way the younger man keeps staring at the canister of salt as though it holds some secret he's waiting for it to reveal.

Dean had forgotten that their mom liked salt on her watermelon. Only when Sam started talking about it, did he remember the way she used to cube the melon, sprinkling salt all over it before setting a bowl in front of him.

"It's not that bad, you know," Dean tells his brother as he watches the cows slowly chew on the rind he tossed out. "It makes the sweetness…sweeter." Dean doesn't really know how to describe it. He just knows that's how he wants to eat it, and he knows saying 'that's how Mom did it' might not be a good enough answer for his brother, especially seeing how Sam never knew her.

But to Dean's surprise, his brother reaches out and takes the salt, tentatively sprinkling a light amount on one portion of the melon. Dean waits patiently as his brother takes a bite, testing it out.

Sam leans forward, spitting out a seed before turning to look at Dean. "It's not that bad," he agrees, smiling before taking another bite.

"She liked music, too," Dean says, tossing his second rind towards the waiting cows. "She used to sing all the time."

"What kind of music?" Sam asks, adding his first rind to Dean's two.

"Country, I think? I can't really remember. It was fun watching her dance though."

Sam nods, trying to imagine the woman in the pictures dancing to Pasty Cline. "Was she any good? Singing I mean, did she sound good?"

Dean smiles, resting his elbows on the fence while propping a foot on one of the lower boards. "I thought so," he answers as 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' suddenly pops into his head, producing images of hands with pail-pink fingernails showing how the rain falls and washes the spider away.

The boys both stand in silence, watching the cows eat the remains of the watermelon, each too caught up in their own thoughts and memories to worry about getting back on the road.

Eventually, the watermelon is gone, and the cows get bored, leaving Sam and Dean alone. "You ready to go?" Dean asks, pulling the knife from the fence, before tossing Sam the canister of salt.

Sam catches it with one hand before sitting it in the trunk. "Yeah, I'm ready." He slams the trunk closed, one last look towards the cows before climbing in beside his brother.

He looks towards Dean, the angle of the setting sun outlining his brother's profile, somehow making his eyes appear even greener, his hair lighter than usual. Dean looks like their mom, the features Sam had studied in photographs present on his brother's face.

The knowledge, memories, stories, even random glimpses at the type of person their mom used to be, Sam can find in his brother. He might not know what it's like to have a mom first hand, but Sam has a pretty good idea.

When they were little and Dean would help Sam with his bath, he would give Sam a washcloth, and tell him to hold it over his eyes, promising it would keep the soap from stinging. As he would empty cupful after cupful of water over his hair, washing out all the shampoo, Dean would tell him, "This is how Mom used to do it."

Almost everything Sam knows concerning Mary Winchester, he's gotten from Dean.

He adds salted watermelon and country music to the growing list as Dean starts the car and pulls out onto the road.

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**Reviews are greatly appreciated.**


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